


Methods of Escape

by BearHatter



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character Study, Dean and Feelings, Gen, and fandoms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-23 22:48:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2558564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BearHatter/pseuds/BearHatter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don’t we consider it his duty to escape?” – JRR Tolkien</p>
            </blockquote>





	Methods of Escape

I did this for the Supernatural Summgergen, for heavenli24, and I like how it turned out, so I polished it just a little and here it is.

For the prompt: A fix exploring how Dean gained some of the knowledge he has shown in the show, such as his knowledge of certain books or pop culture - what happened in his life that he ended up reading or watching them?

It was a cool prompt, one I've always mused on myself; this turned out a little more thoughtful than I was expecting. Dean's just a deep guy. And deeply nerdy, in most of the best ways.

\-------------------------------  
  
Growing up, Dean was always aware of the world around him, all the dark and bloody corners, all the sharp teeth and cold spots. It wasn’t just the supernatural, either. The kind of life they lived didn’t happen in the sunshine. Dean had spent a lot of time outside of seedy bars, just waiting to get back to a seedy motel; or, if they were lucky and sticking around for a few months, a seedy apartment.

Dean had to grow tough to hunt, but also to live. He lived to make his father proud, and to protect Sammy: he grew sharp edges to put off the pervs at bars, an intimidating persona to scare off anyone who might mess with Sammy, and became the disciplined soldier his Dad needed.

The escapism thing started when he was eight, just watching crap TV late at night, trying to cover up the sounds of the loud couple next door. He found a _Star Trek: TOS_ marathon and just… kept watching. He even fell asleep on the couch, and woke up with a blanket over him, which meant Dad had already come and gone. So Dean got up and got Sam ready for school, thinking about spaceships and phasers and actual, non-hunting adventures.

Sure, he was tired or whatever. But tired he could handle. Tired was his body talking, and his body was a tool. How often had that been drilled into him? Now, escape, that was… well, that was freedom. Worth it. So that night he watched _Star Trek_ again.

And he just kept doing it.

It was cheeseball ‘60s sci-fi, yeah, but it was _the_ cheeseball ‘60s sci-fi. And watching Kirk, Spock, and McCoy kick alien ass was something to distract him. ‘Cause they were badasses, okay? And Kirk got action. And… they weren’t messed up from it, you know? He learned to keep quiet about it at school, but he kept watching that kind of thing, all the sci-fi reruns on tv, all growing up.

Then one time he brought Sammy to the library (he could drive, so he was probably 16) and lost him in non-fiction (like always). Dean found himself wandering in the sci-fi section. There was a _Star Trek_ book there, and he had nothing better to do, so--he read it. He finished it before they had to go, in fact, and it was the same thing. It helped time pass. At least it was better than waiting around or trolling the library’s shitty internet.

It got to be a habit. That summer, he read almost all the recommended sci-fi books, and all the novelizations of the various shows he caught on late-night TV. Dean read so much he won some kind of library award without realizing he was even working on it: an old lady librarian with sharp eyes and a quirked mouth had seen what he read and written it down for him. She gave him a gold certificate and a free journal—a really nice one. He'd liked her. She didn’t talk (or take) any crap, just gave them to him and stared him down with her tiny pointed smile until he took them.

When Sam saw, he scoffed and asked how Dean had wheedled them out of her, grumbling about him flirting with old ladies. Dean didn’t correct him, just looked at him incredulously. Dean never pretended to be a bookworm like Sammy, but what did Sammy think he _did_ while waiting for him in the library? For all his smarts, Sam wasn’t very observant when it came to things closer to home.

He didn’t like all of it, necessarily ( _Dune_ was way lame, for all it was hyped up to be), but they were better than real life. They were what Dean wished he had the space and time to be. As he grew older, he learned that real heroes weren’t like that. Stories like that stayed in stories. Life was hard and then you died. But still… Heroes, you know?

Dean didn’t read as much in public after that, didn’t want to come off as pretentious or nerdy or trying to usurp Sam’s role or whatever. He knew he was slated to be the brawn, not the brains of the operation. But sometimes he would nick an interesting book from a library to read on the road under his jacket, or in a motel so crappy it didn’t have Wi-Fi.

He didn’t keep them, just left them under the bed or in a gas station when he was done. He couldn’t spare the room or the weight. But there was a copy of a Kurt Vonnegut book he gave in and stuffed in his duffel, after putting off dropping it by rereading it five times.

That was the reading, though. With TV and movies, he didn’t have to hide it, just watched for hours when he knew sleeping would only bring nightmares. He took Sammy out to the movies even when he whined, if he won a good hand of poker. They could watch TV together, knees knocking carelessly together on the couch, flipping through Disney and NBC and Fox and looking up close at bright pictures of a world they lived on the outskirts of.

Then Sam left for college, leaving Dean alone in the mess, showing him exactly what he thought of trying to be a hero. Dean watched the whole season of _Firefly_ in one sitting and cursed out the Fox execs when it was over. All good things come to an end, sure, but do you have to cut them off early? ( _And didn’t Sam understand that none of the good stories were about ordinary people?_ Some shoved down part of him kept asking.)

When Dad sent him off to hunt on his own, Dean watched the extended editions of the _Lord of the Rings_ , all ripped copies. He slammed them back like shots, just to prove he could. Just because he felt like it. Just so he didn't have to think about other people in the room when he watched the scene of Sam getting left behind. Who cared if he got a little teary? That series was a frickin’ _masterpiece._

Sam was more of a non-fiction guy. He read some fantasy on the side, but he didn’t really care to immerse himself in stuff like Dean did—brief, intense binges in between the rough reality of hunting. Dad didn’t care about anything but hunting, and then he was dead. Neither of them ever really understood, and Dean got that. He figured he was different. Work hard, play hard, and…what the hell? Watch hard.

Charlie understood better than anyone ever had; being her Chamber Maid or whatever, and then leading the charge while LARPing, was the most fun he’d had in a long time. It gave him an idea of what his life might have been like if hunting wasn’t a thing, if all the monsters went back under the bed. It was a fool’s dream, though. He could live on late-night TV.

It was part of the reason he liked Cas, if he was honest. Cas was all shiny and new and terrifying, but he was fun to introduce to everything Dean loved. Cas would watch, or read or listen, just on Dean’s recommendation. They were things Cas had never experienced before. It got Dean excited all over again about things that he’d seen a billion times. It got Sam into it, too, in a way he’d never been before.

Movie night at the bunker ( _a bunker! a Batcave!_ some little boy part of Dean always shouted, while a quieter part insisted _home_ ) was every night, and Dean made the popcorn.


End file.
